This invention relates to a floating connector.
For example, a floating connector is disclosed in JP2018-37151A (Patent Document 1), the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Referring to FIG. 40, Patent Document 1 discloses a receptacle connector (connector) 90 which comprises a fixed housing 92, a movable housing 94 and a plurality of terminals (contacts) 96. Each of the contacts 96 has a middle resilient portion 962 and a contact arm 966 each of which is resiliently deformable. The middle resilient portion 962 has a held portion 964, and the contact arm 966 has a fixed portion 968. The held portion 964 is integrally molded with the fixed housing 92 and is fixed to the fixed housing 92. The fixed portion 968 is integrally molded with the movable housing 94 and is fixed to the movable housing 94. Thus, each of the contacts 96 has two spring portions, namely the middle resilient portion 962 and the contact arm 966, which are resiliently deformable independently of each other.
According to the aforementioned structure, the middle resilient portions 962 support the movable housing 94 so that the movable housing 94 is movable relative to the fixed housing 92. In other words, the connector 90 is a floating connector. When the connector 90 is mated with a mating connector (not shown), the contact arms 966 are moved and resiliently deformed so as to follow the relative movement of the movable housing 94, so that the contact arms 966 are brought into contact with mating contacts (not shown), respectively, with sufficient contact pressure.
As disclosed in Patent Document 1, a contact of an existing floating connector is required to be provided with two spring portions, or a spring portion for floating and another spring portion for contact, which are resiliently deformable independently of each other. This requirement generally makes the size of the connector large.